With the development of modern plastic film and film laminates which when formed into pouches or bags are capable of serving as oxygen and moisture barriers to protect contents of the bags, the same have come into widespread use for consumer goods, of which a typical example is use of such bags or pouches to receive dry cereal and which are disposed within exterior cardboard cartons.
Such bags may be formed in a variety of well known ways including diverse pleats and seal lines as desired by the cereal or other packager. All such bags, however, include a seal at the top of the bag along a line slightly below the top of the bag material. The filled cereal bag of usually somewhat translucent plastic is packaged within an outer cardboard box or carton having suitable printing and decoration thereon. The cereal bag is usually tack sealed to the inside of the box to prevent undesired shifting of the same during shipping and handling whereby the top of the bag will remain disposed within the carton generally proximate the top of the box. The outer box is provided with openable top flaps to gain access to the sealed cereal bag within the carton.
To dispense the cereal, it is necessary after lifting the carton top flaps to then open the bag at the top of the carton by one means or another. As indicated, such bags are usually transversely sealed, commonly by a heat seal of the plastic bag material or the facing laminate surfaces thereof.
The bag seal or seals along with the plastic film guarantee freshness of the cereal product therewithin, but by the same token, often present substantial difficulty to the consumer in opening the bag. The plastic film is relatively slick and hard to grasp firmly. Further, the unsealed generally "V-shaped" free end of the bag above the top transverse seal is of relatively short height, adding to the problem in seizing and trying to pull the seal open by lateral force on the bag material. This is especially true of those persons of limited finger and hand strength.
As a consequence, oftentimes in the struggle to open the bag, the hands slip and effect major tears in the outside carton stock, causing contents storage and leakage problems when the inside bag is finally opened. In other cases, knives are used in an effort to pierce the bag and cut the same open, with obvious handling hazards. Scissors are occasionally employed, but require manipulation in the limited space available to reach below the seal to cut the tough film bag.
There thus exists a need for a practical, inexpensive, and non-hazardous means for opening such sealed cereal bags and other containers having similar seals that are difficult to separate to access the bag contents.